Karaoke Forums

I posted something similar on another forum in response to a post made there. I thought it would make an interesting topic for a broader audience. I have made some edits to provide more background and allow it to stand alone better.

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There has been and likely will be a lot of debate over what is going on in the karaoke industry and how the manufacturers are dealing with piracy. Now that I have gone through the "certification" process with the "Big 3" U.S. Manufacturers, I thought I would post my experience.

There is a lot of speculation, guessing, and flat out incorrect information out there. I want to attempt to clear some of it up.

I also want to try to help those that are on the fence about what to do, to take a real life experience from someone that has been through it, and use that in making up their mind about what to do.

Finally, I specifically think Sound Choice in particular takes a lot of grief for their aggressive pursuit of rooting out illegal activity. This gets perpetuated by the beating they take from those that really have no true personal experience with the process. In spite of my own personal opinion about HOW they go about doing what the do, I absolutely support WHY they do it.

These ratings are based on the process of getting audited/certified/compliant with each respected manufacturer. 10 = fantastical / 1 = you just received a ziploc full of dog poo from your ex.

Stellar Records/PHM (3 out of 10) - For a company that is producing regular content, doesn't seem to be actively pursuing pirates and stays very much out of the limelight, I expected these folks to be the easiest to work with. In reality, it took 6 months, a complaint to the Better Business Bureau (which I later withdrew), and consultation with a lawyer to get them to send me my certificates/license information. That is 6 months AFTER I paid $3200 in full, up front. Not to mention the particularly un-professional email volleys I received from their company president. Keep in mind, that they don't audit, they don't ask for a Skype call, pictures, or any other information that can't be produced with in a few minutes. All they really had to do was generate some documentation, print it, mail it. It seems to me they had the easiest job of all three. But it was an experience that really set the stage for how I planned to deal with CB and SC. (I need to be clear that I am still a Stellar customer. I still get their monthly updates and I hope they change the way the deal with people that come to them on their own). Tony Walstra is a good guy in my book as are the billing and shipping folks. Their CEO is another matter. He is primary reason they are rated so low.

Chartbuster (7 out of 10) - Amazingly better than what I expected after the previous experience. I do feel I had to keep the ball rolling and if I had not, it would have taken longer. But everyone I dealt with was nice, kind, courteous. It took 2 months from date of full payment, up front, until we wrapped things up. Some of that delay was due to the holidays. Also, no audit since I was auto-certified with the purchase of the 12000+ drive. They had to serialize the drive, ship it, ship out some physical discs, create, print, mails certs and get me up on their web site. Much more work than Stellar. I like Chartbuster. Good people there. Greg Taylor was the sales guy I worked with. I spoke to a few others on phone calls but I don't recall their names.

Sound Choice (8 out of 10) - The only thing holding them from a 9 is that we aren't 100% yet. The score is partly influenced higher because I had very low expectations going in becasue of my Stellar experience and all the FUD that circulates about Sound Choice. I am still waiting to get posted to the Certified KJ site and to receive my certificates and banner. But we just performed the actual audit 5 days ago. We started the paperwork process less than 30 days ago, had to schedule an audit (in-person), and perform the audit. Sound Choice had the most work to do and has been the most prompt and responsive. Kurt Slep, the man framed by some as the scourge of the karaoke industry, has been responsive, and cordial. He even connected me with someone for a project I have been thinking about for a while. I suspect we will have everything buttoned up in 7-10 days max. Interestingly, they forgot to even charge me for my audit beforehand so I called them this morning to make payment. Also good people. Chris Emrie is great, as are a few others that have been in emails threads. I can't leave out Harrington either. My experience in private emails with him just after coming to these forums tipped the scales greatly in favor of Sound Choice. That man deserves much respect for the efforts he puts in here to dispel rumors and false information. He doesn't have to do what he does.

The interesting thing is that the company (Sound Choice) that the most people are up in arms about and so afraid of, is the company that I (and others it seems) have had a very comfortable experience with. I think they have a very, very bad rep that is perpetuated by some very negative people. I have to admit that I was very skittish and skeptical about dealing with Sound Choice. But I have enjoyed - yes...enjoyed - it the most.

There is an interesting story about what happened at my audit that made it intersting, and now, after the fact, a fun time. Separate post when I have time.


-Chris

ps....Maybe I should just officially cave in and get myself some SC pom-poms.....

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-Chris

Great post Chris, from someone who has actually walked the walk. However, I don't think it will change the minds of the negative posters here. Personally, I found Kurt and Sound Choice very easy and actually fun to deal with. I also agree that Kurt and Sound Choice have been given a bad rap on these forums, and that's a shame because they're a good company to deal with.

On a side note, does anyone know if Chartbuster is still pursuing the $200 a year audit fee from vetted KJ's, and does anyone know what happened to Paula?

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My first choice IS Sound Choice.

@skid - I know it won't change the minds of the people that have solidly set themselves against Sound Choice (and in my opinion, the industry). That is why I prefaced it as reaching out to those that are on the fence. I could just as easily gone the other direction about Sound Choice based upon all of the FUD and mudslinging. I chose to keep an open mind, do some research, and open dialogs with key people. In short, I attempted to, and feel I succeded in making an informed decision about what to do.



-Chris

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-Chris

Chris what will be your recurring annual fees with SC and CB? And will you be required addtional annual audits as well or just payments?

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My statements, opinions and conclusions are based on my own personal experiences, observations, research and/or just my own $.02. I'm not a "cheerleader", but that doesn't make me a Pirate.

I will honestly have to ask a few questions of CB and SC before answering this. I think I know the answer for CB, but I am not 100% with SC yet. I will make some calls/emails to find out.

-Chris

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-Chris

I would agree 100% with your ratings of CB & SC. My dealings were similar.

Moved to piracy/legality forum, since it has to do with legalities. If the topic is going there, i.e. has anything to do with compliance, PLEASE start it there and don't put it in the main forum.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

oops! I actually meant to place it there in the first place.

I also just posted (a slightly modified version) to my blog -

http://afairrotation.wordpress.com


-Chris

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-Chris

Thanks Chris, but I have to ask.

How do you have 100% buy in on something that you don't know what it will cost you down the road in recurring fees and/or time?

Seems to me the manus would want all this information openly available on their website. I mean if you want KJ's to participate in a program they need to make all the details readily available to them about the program, time frames, recurring fees, recurring audits, etc...

Your rating of each manu's process is based on your expectations. If Stellar had told you up front that their process would have taken 6 months, I don't see how it should, and they followed through in that time frame would your rating of them been as low?

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My statements, opinions and conclusions are based on my own personal experiences, observations, research and/or just my own $.02. I'm not a "cheerleader", but that doesn't make me a Pirate.

I am certainly free to change my rating at any time. What I posted is based upon my experience thus far. But you do bring up a good point. I sent emails to SC and CB asking for clarification so I am better informed.

I have mentioned before that there is a cost of doing business in what we do. Sometimes those costs are obvious - buying music, replacing/upgrading gear, insurance, paying for a business license, etc). Sometimes they aren't.



I agree 100%. Stellar is actually pretty clear. 1 time fee. Done. I will provide feedback as a part of finding out more about this that I think they should be more clear.



My current rating is based on my past/current experience. My future rating is subject to change based upon what takes place in the future.

If Stellar set expectations that it would take 6 months, then I would have been fine with that and barring any other issues, my rating of them would be higher. Stellar gave no indication of that and repeatedly told me that it would on be "another week or so". To be fair, I should probably note that by Stellar I mean their CEO. But since he represented the company as a whole and sets the tone for the company as a whole, I rated my experience with their company as a whole. It isn't fair to the employees or their product, but that is something that the leader of the company needs to be conscious of.

-Chris

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-Chris

In my experience the ONLY reason that stellar is still a viable business is because of the efforts of Tony Wallstra


they should have made him CEO although that probably would mean that not as much would get done.

I have always had trouble getting in touch with anyone associated with chartbusters whether it was the sales department or anyone else. emails were chiefly ignored completely or took a whole month to answer. Most of the time I had to call on my own dime to harass someone to get the answers I needed. So if for any reason I decide to get back into hosting charbusters will not be getting any certification fees from me i'd rather let them come after me and prove my innocence.

Soundchoice on the other hand, have always been courteous prompt with their answers and in 99% of the cases were answered by Kurt himself.

How many company's do you personally deal with the president of that company?

Now i realize that this may be out of necessity as they are no longer producing, but even so Kurt and his remaining staff seem to know a thing or two about customer service. Kurt has assured me that if I get back to hosting that I will be able to do an audit without any delays and jokingly stated that he's holding a set of gem discs with my name on them..

One of my life goals has been to record in soundchoice's 0 studio *yes, i know they don't own it anymore but all the recording equipment is still there* and to personally meet Kurt. after all the experiences I have had with them, this goal has not altered in the slightest.

-James

Regarding the yearly fees, this is what I gathered on information:

Chartbuster:
If you get disk audited it is a $199 fee for the audit and a yearly reoccurred fee. If you buy their digital library on a hard drive you automatically get certified without the $199 fee and no reoccurring fees.

Sound Choice:
They have it kind of reversed. If you get disk audited it's a one time fee of $125. If you buy their digital library on a hard drive, there is some kind of yearly fee AFAIK.

Pop Hits:
If you participate in their CAP program it's a one time fee of $3200 and you're allowed to use all their tracks (including TH and some others I never heard of) from 1995 up to 2007. After that you would need a disk for each track. I don't have any information about how their disk audit process works or what the costs are. I'm sure Athena could answer this.

All that information is what I gathered. I'm taking no responsibility though if it's 100% accurate or not! I could be wrong...

my dealings have been similar.
SC was fine. Kurt did mine himself and we actually had a fairly good time through the audit.
CB was just as easy and everyone i dealt with was very nice.
Stellar over the last year has not even acknowledged one e-mail or answerd or returned one call asking for an audit which i am not even sure they do.
others have the Stellar Certified logo, but no one actually seems to work there.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Thank you Chris, for your ratings I called Chartbuster today and ordered the 12,000 song library. Greg was great on the phone and when I called back with a few questions I had forgotten to ask, he told me that my Certificate and library were in production as we spoke (I had called just an hour prior with the original order). He said I should be receiving all next week! I am so excited!! I will wait a little bit to call Soundchoice since I don't have a whole lot of their stuff. (Foundation and Bricks with a few single disc's). I don't think I'll call Stellar at all.... we were on their monthly ship program awhile back, own about 48 disc's. It's kinda hard to justify paying for an audit for such a small amount of disc's. I do still have the receipts from them for the disc's I purchased so that should be enough if they ever do come look at us.
Anyway, I just wanted to add that Chartbuster was awesome! I'm just so excited to be getting the certificate from CB! I'll let ya know if it really does arrive in a week.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

Just to clear up the issue. Stellar does not do audits. We received ours during a VERY short period of time when SC and Stellar had what ended up being a misunderstanding about mutual audits. The only way to receive Stellar certification now is to purchase the CAP program.

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Stellar did audits for a very short time. I know for a fact that for the period from July 2011 through December 2011 they did not have an audit program as that was the period in which I was getting my CAP agreement taking care of. I have not spoken to or emailed anyone at Stellar since my final email to their CEO back on Dec 17th.

@LisaH - Did you mention my name and get a discount with ChartBuster?

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris, dang it I forgot! Pm coming

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

I'm thinking I may not be using the THM tracks.... they're from 2006, 2007 and 2008.. I'd be willing to bet that I'll have all the songs on CB.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!

LisaH...Stellar is not pursuing at this time .....you should be perfectly safe using Stellar products IF you are 1-1 compliant

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Athena,
I am totally compliant. Been typing for a week to make sure of it!! The only thing I had that wasn't legal were some Zoom downloads... I didn't know I couldn't use them at the time I DL'd them. They're gone now and my certification is on it's way from CB. I'm going to be completing my 'plan' soon, as I told you about last week.

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SoundChoice Certification coming soon!